Thousands gathered in St Peter's Square in the afternoon of
Wednesday, 29 April, for the weekly General Audience. Continuing his
treatment of the theology of the human body, the Holy Father delivered the
following address.

1. We have already dedicated a series of reflections to the meaning of
the words spoken by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, in which he exhorts
to purity of heart, calling attention even to the "lustful look." We
cannot forget these words of Christ even when it is a question of the vast
sphere of artistic culture, particularly that of a visual and spectacular
character, as also when it is a question of the sphere of "mass" culture—so
significant for our times—connected
with the use of the audiovisual communications media. We said recently
that the above-mentioned sphere of activity is sometimes accused of
pornovision, just as the accusation of pornography is made with regard to
literature. Both facts take place by going beyond the limit of shame, that
is, of personal sensitivity with regard to what is connected with the
human body and its nakedness. It happens when in the artistic work by
means of the media of audiovisual production the right to the privacy of
the body in its masculinity or femininity is violated, and—in
the last analysis—when
that intimate and constant destination to the gift and to mutual donation,
which is inscribed in that femininity and masculinity through the whole
structure of the being-man, is violated. That deep inscription, or rather
incision, decides the nuptial meaning of the body, that is, the
fundamental call it receives to form a communion of persons and to
participate in it.

The human body and model or subject

2. It is obvious that in works of art, or in the products of
audiovisual artistic reproduction, the above-mentioned constant
destination to the gift, that is, that deep inscription of the meaning of
the human body, can be violated only in the intentional order of the
reproduction and the representation: it is a question, in fact—as
has already been previously said—of
the human body as model or subject. However, if the sense of shame and
personal sensitivity is offended in these cases, that happens because of
their transfer to the dimension of social communication, therefore owing
to the fact that what, in man's rightful feeling, belongs and must belong
strictly to the interpersonal relationship—which
is linked, as has already been pointed out, with the communion of
persons itself, and in its sphere corresponds to the interior truth of
man, and so also to the complete truth about man—becomes,
so to speak, public property.

At this point it is not possible to agree with the representatives of
so-called naturalism. They demand the right to "everything that is human"
in works of art and in the products of artistic reproduction. They affirm
that they act in this way in the name of the realistic truth about man. It
is precisely this truth about man—the
whole truth about man—that
makes it necessary to consider both the sense of the privacy of the body
and the consistency of the gift connected with the masculinity and
femininity of the body itself, in which the mystery of man, peculiar to
the interior structure of the person, is reflected. This truth about man
must also be considered in the artistic order, if we want to speak of a
full realism.

Value of body in interpersonal communion

3. In this case, it is evident that the deep governing rule related to
the communion of persons is in profound agreement with the vast and
differentiated area of communication. The human body in its nakedness—as
we stated in the preceding analyses (in which we referred to Genesis 2:25)—understood
as a manifestation of the person and as his gift, that is, a sign of trust
and donation to the other person, who is conscious of the gift, and who is
chosen and resolved to respond to it in an equally personal way, becomes
the source of a particular interpersonal communication.

As has already been said, this is a particular communication in
humanity itself. That interpersonal communication penetrates deeply into
the system of communion (communio personarum), and at the same time
it grows from it and develops correctly within it. Precisely because of
the great value of the body in this system of interpersonal communion, to
make the body in its nakedness—which
expresses precisely "the element" of the gift—the
object-subject of the work of art or of the audiovisual reproduction, is a
problem which is not only aesthetic, but also ethical. That "element of
the gift" is, so to speak, suspended in the dimension of an unknown
reception and an unforeseen response. Thereby it is in a way threatened in
the order of intention, in the sense that it may become an anonymous
object of appropriation, an object of abuse. Precisely for this reason the
integral truth about man constitutes in this case the foundation of the
norm according to which the good or evil of determined actions, of
behavior, of morals and situations, is modeled. The truth about man, about
what is particularly personal and interior in him—precisely
because of his body and his sex (femininity-masculinity)—creates
here precise limits which it is unlawful to exceed.

Recognizing limits

4. These limits must be recognized and observed by the artist who makes
the human body the object, model or subject of the work of art or of the
audiovisual reproduction. Neither he nor others who are responsible in
this field have the right to demand, propose or bring it about that other
people, invited, exhorted or admitted to see, to contemplate the image,
should violate those limits together with them, or because of them. It is
a question of the image, in which that which in itself constitutes the
content and the deeply personal value, that which belongs to the order of
the gift and of the mutual donation of person to person, is, as a subject,
uprooted from its own authentic substratum. It becomes, through social
communication, an object and what is more, in a way, an anonymous object.

As can be seen from what is said above, the whole problem of
pornovision and pornography is not the effect of a puritanical mentality
or of a narrow moralism, just as it is not the product of a thought imbued
with Manichaeism. It is a question of an extremely important, fundamental
sphere of values. Before it, man cannot remain indifferent because of the
dignity of humanity, the personal character and the eloquence of the human
body. By means of works of art and the activity of the audiovisual media,
all those contents and values can be modeled and studied. But they can
also be distorted and destroyed in the heart of man. As can be seen, we
find ourselves continually within the orbit of the words Christ spoke in
the Sermon on the Mount. Also the problems which we are dealing with here
must be examined in the light of those words, which consider a look that
springs from lust as "adultery committed in the heart."

It seems, therefore, that reflection on these problems, which is
important to create a climate favorable to education to chastity,
constitutes an indispensable appendage to all the preceding analyses which
we have dedicated to this subject in the course of numerous Wednesday
meetings.

Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
4 May 1981, page 8

L'Osservatore Romano is the newspaper of the Holy See.
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